Avoiding the Brand Bollocks

There are too many to cover in just one article – so to kick-off, I'll start with our top 3.

Millennials

Let's start with segmentation. Millennials, per se, aren't the issue. But we frequently hear talk of Millennials as a segment – "we want to target millennials who are looking for rich experiences"… "target Millennials who want digital-only solutions".

By referring to Millennials as a 'segment', we're assuming they like and value the same things – that they behave in the same way. And they don't – research shows that attitudinally there's nothing hugely different about them as a group. 

In 2017 researcher, Martin Schiere conducted a study of 15,000 millennials from 20 countries. He compared attitudes of Millennials to those of Gen Xers and the post-war Baby Boomers. The result? A similar and equal split across the five different attitudinal groups – Millennials were no more likely to be significantly skewed towards one group than the Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers were. Conservatives, challengers, creatives, socialisers and achievers all contained a pretty equal split of the three age demographics. 

And you don't even need to be that scientific. A quick Google search of 'what brands Millennials like' will tell you they like Apple, Target, Nike, Uber, Airbnb, Instagram, Amazon and Netflix. Great – that narrows it down then. So do my mum and my grandad. 

So, what's my point? The benefit of customer segmentation is that it enables us to accurately target customers with a message that's relevant to that customer. Good customer profiles help us do that by grouping people based on common needs, behaviours, interests and the like. 

There are 2 billion Millennials on the planet, and the only thing that unifies them is the fact they were born between 1981 and 1996. It's really no different than segmenting based on race or gender. Let's ban all talk of Millennials when it comes to segmentation – it's lazy and leads to poor targeting and ineffective comms. 

Avoiding the brand bollocks over this kind of lazy segmentation means avoiding falling into stereotypes. Focus segmentation on a customer's needs or problems, not what decade they were born in.

Brand Onions

This is another favourite bit of brand bollocks, particularly with large corporate firms. It's so prominent that we've written articles on the failings of the brand onion. So, what's our beef with brand onions? (Sorry).

When you think about great brand comms – it doesn't always work if you pick it apart piece by piece and try to review the merit of each element (colour, typography, imagery, language). The magic happens when all of those things work in harmony to create a brilliant piece of creative. 

In the case of Brand Onions, the opposite is the case. When you read the individual words and statements in isolation, they make sense. In theory, it's all there, but they rarely coalesce into something meaningful that helps guide and direct the brand. It's just a bunch of words on a page, trying to make the brand sound different.

We've sat through countless meetings where brand managers methodically work their way through a brand presentation. A solemn sell in at the brand altar. The serious and detailed explanation of why Brand X really is better than Brands Y and Z. Culminating in a single summing up slide in little boxes. They tick off Reasons to Believe, personality, how we talk, how we look, how we behave, brand belief, brand vision, brand values, brand promise, brand essence. The list goes on and on.

However, the complexity each of those variations creates offers very little value. Most of it tends to hinder more than help. How many of those brand presentations end up living in a drawer rather than guiding the business?

How to avoid brand onion bollocks? You need an honest positioning that defines what you're all about and why anyone should care. And three simple brand values that act as the guardrails for everything else. 

What,  How,  Why

Simon Sinek's "Why, How, What" model has grown in popularity over recent years. The thinking is, every organisation knows what they do, most know how they do it (what makes them different / their USP) but very few know why (their purpose, cause, belief). 

"People don't buy what you do they buy why you do it" means influencing consumer behaviour by thinking from the inside out - leading with the emotional stuff rather than the functional, practical stuff. All sounds eminently sensible, and that's why brand language is so important – keeping it simple, keeping it human – is the best way to develop engaging comms. 

However, the reality is if your what and how aren't nailed, it doesn't matter about the why. You might do a great job of selling customers on your "why" so they engage with you once. But businesses don't generate success from a single transaction – they generate success over time by selling you once, then delivering a solid product and a good brand experience, so you come back again and again. If your "what" doesn't live up to expectations, it doesn't matter how inspiring your "why" is.

That said, I think it can be a useful tool in a world of brand bollocks. It's the polar opposite to brand onions or ladders or keys or wheels or houses or whatever but as a "brand on a page" tool, it's overly simplistic. It's a great tool for an internal workshop to get your head around an initial problem, but it's difficult to move that into long-lasting, engaging, thoughtful and effective communication moving forward. 

Solid brand values, on the other hand, help guide your brand on multiple levels. They help guide behaviour and provide focus. And perhaps most importantly, they help shape your brand's personality and tone of voice. The pro's of "Why, How, What": it's simple. The con's – it's too simple. It maybe has a place, but it's not the be-all and end-all of good branding.

By all means, use a sprinkling of "Why, How, What" internally to get some thoughts together, to rally people around common themes. But that’s just the start, make sure it’s a foundation, not the whole encapsulation of the brand. 

We just ran through the branding bollocks that jumps out to us, it's the tip of the iceberg. We're on a mission to stamp it out when and where we can. Join us!